ModelSim Technotes www.model.

com
ModelSim Tcl/Tk Examples
You can run this example in any of the following ways:

1. Copy the example and paste it directly into ModelSim (at the ModelSim> or VSIM>
prompt).

2. Copy the example and paste it into a file called "modelsim.tcl" in the directory that
ModelSim will be invoked from (ModelSim looks for a file of this name in the current
directory and in the users home directory).
3. Copy the example and paste it into a file with any name and then use the "source"
command from the ModelSim prompt to load that Tcl/Tk code.
4. Copy the example and paste it into a file with any name and then set the environment
variable MODELSIM_TCL to the name of the file prior to invoking ModelSim. [Note:
MODELSIM_TCL can be a ":" separated list of Tcl/Tk files to load].
5. [Not recommended] You copy and add the example to the file "<ModelSim Install
Directory>/tcl/vsim/pref.tcl". This file gets loaded every time ModelSim is invoked. Care
should be taken when editing this file because every user who uses ModelSim from that
directory will load the Tcl/Tk that you have added.

Add a Print button to the Wave Window

Place the following Tcl/Tk code into your modelsim.tcl file either in the project directory or in your
home directory. Alternatively, you can set the environment variable MODELSIM_TCL to the
name of the file containing:

# Setting the following variable will cause the procedure

# addPrintButton to be called every time a ModelSim Wave
# window is created. It will be called with a single argument
# which is the name of the Wave window (".wave" , ".wave1" ,
# ".wave2" , etc).
set PrefWave(user_hook) "addPrintButton"
#Print the viewed waveform
proc printit {wname} {
set time_range [$wname.tree zoomrange]
set time_start [lindex $time_range 0]
set time_end [lindex $time_range 1]

ModelSim Technotes www.model.com

$wname.tree write -width inch -height inch -start $time_start \
-end $time_end -margin 0.5inch -pagecount 1 \
-landscape wave.ps
# If you send things to the printer with "lpr" then
# uncomment the following line:
# exec lpr wave.ps
}
#Add the print button for this wave window.
proc addPrintButton {wname} {
set wnamebase [string range $wname 1 end] ;#Strip leading "."
apply_button_adder $wnamebase controls right #667de3 \
white Print "printit $wname"
}

Note: If you get a message stating that "apply_button_adder" is an invalid command then you are
probably on release 5.1f or before. To make the above example work with that release, replace
the call to "apply_button_adder" with a call to "_add_menu" with the same arguments.